Wayfaring Strangers
by Grin Reapers
Summary: Some strangers we meet by coincidence; some strangers we meet because it's fate. Everything is about to change for Sam and Dean. Written by adrenalineshots, bayre, calamitycrow, Laura of Maychoria, & Zubeneschamali for the spnwriterslounge Fic Olympics.


**Title**: Wayfaring Strangers**  
Authors**: adrenalineshots, bayre, calamitycrow, Laura of Maychoria, and Zubeneschamali**  
Betareader**: jackfan2**  
Timeline**: Set between 'What is and what should never be' and 'All hell breaks loose'-part 1**  
Rating**: T (language)**  
Disclaimer**: We have life-sized carton board replicas of them... does that count? The originals are owned by Kripke &Co

**Summary**: Some strangers we meet on coincidence; some strangers we meet because it's fate. When a simple hunt goes sideways,  
the hospital is the last place that Sam and Dean would've thought to cause such an impact in their lives. Everything is about to change...

This story was written for the Writers' Olympics at spnwriterslounge. Stop by the Grin Reapers' LJ (grinreapers dot livejournal dot com) and vote for our story!

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_Dean sat at the kitchen table of their old house, sun streaming through an open window, Spring breezes light and airy blowing through. He meant to ask where mom was, but Carmen put a beer in front of him, and her smile distracted him. Well that, and the smells coming out of the oven._

_She glanced over her shoulder, gave him a raised eyebrow, bent over to open the oven door._

_He stopped mid-swig, looking at the way her tight jeans hugged her ass. Grinned. "That looks awesome."_

_He grinned wider when she laughed. She pulled the pan of lasagna out, turned._

"Now_ you can say it."_

_"That looks awesome." Dean dutiful repeated. Then, when the pan was set aside, he caught her around the waist and she yelped gleefully as he pulled her into him. She laughed again as he kissed her, her breath warm and sweet against his lips._

_There was sauce splattered on her shirt, a smear of the red substance on her cheek, and her hair was a little messy, coming out of her ponytail. Dean thought he'd never seen her look more beautiful._

_Without hesitation, she kissed him back, then wiggled out of his embrace with a small groan. "It's Thursday."_

_Dean groaned 'cause he knew that meant; after they ate, she had to work the late shift at the hospital. He cocked his head, shoveling food onto his plate. "Guess you're just gonna have to make it—" there was an odd thump-thump upstairs. "—up to me later." Dean frowned and glanced up._

_Carmen's expression was puzzled. "What?"_

_"Did you hear that?"_

_She shook her head, hair swirling gently around her face, hand reaching up to tuck a few stray strands behind her ear. Reached for the salt._

_Dean took a bite before he heard it again. A heavy thump-thump-thump over their heads._

_Carmen smiled, and the smile was too wide, her voice too cheerful. "So how was work? Did Gina bring her car in? She said it's been making this screeching n-"_

Thump-thump.

_Dean was on his feet._

_"Dean—"_

_Ignoring her, he took the first couple of steps up the staircase in one leap. Dean paused at the landing long enough to reach for his gun but instead of the familiar Colt 1911, his hands closed around a little .22. The same .22 he used as a teen for target practicing._

Fan-freakin'-tastic.

_The remaining steps he took slowly, the way he was taught; back against the wall, both hands on his gun. Cautious, his eyes swept the area in a full arc, taking everything in with each time he took a step._

_Close to the top he heard the noise again, the same heavy thump-thump-thump. Looking down, he swallowed hard; a deep pool of blood puddled on the top step. In the partially lit hall, it looked almost black in the dark shadows._

_Dean felt his blood run cold._

Sammy.

_Jessica and his brother had flown in from college and were staying in Sam's old bedroom. Upstairs._

_"Sammy?" he shouted, moving quickly. The copper tang of adrenaline in his mouth, heart hammering. Opened the first door, then the second door. His thoughts became frantic._ Where the hell are you, Sam?

_Dean shouted his brother's name again, the echo of his own voice answered, reverberating around him. He found another door and then still another, and the hall seemed to curve, to bend and stretch, until there were too many doors and he couldn't check them all._

_He heard it though. The low thump-thump-thump, like flesh striking wood. Felt something behind him, whirled. Let out a breath in relief. Just Carmen and Jessica, standing in yet another doorway._

_They took a step toward him in unison, and their skin began to flake, peel away, sloughing off in long strips, revealing the pulsing red of raw flesh. They laughed then, their wide-open mouths showing long needle-like teeth and long snakelike tongues. Their eyes turned milky white and they hissed his name._

_Charcoteles. Dean had hunted their kind before. They were dangerous and hard to kill, immune to both silver and salt._

_He raised the .22, but now it was the smooth, heavy weight of dad's old .45, and Dean already knew it was going to jam, just like it did back in west Kentucky, but he fired anyway, listened to the unmistakable sound of a stovepipe as the gun failed in his hands. Dean tried again, and again, unable to control the spastic movement of his finger on the useless trigger._

_The sharp-toothed creatures that had borne the faces of beautiful women before advanced on him, greenish saliva dripping from their snarling mouths. Dean took a step back, lost his balance, fell back on his ass, started trying to scrabble-_

The shrill of the alarm clock woke him.

Dean sat straight up, covered in sweat, panting hard. Head bowed, arms loose in his lap, he sat there, just breathing, trying to untangle himself from the vivid nightmare. Looked over at the bathroom door, heard the sounds of Sam taking a shower through the thin walls.

Dean's eyes narrowed. They'd spent the whole previous night doing research, finally giving up around six in the morning when the their eyes were crossing so hard that the puppy dogs on the fugly wallpaper were starting to come to life. The fact that they'd set the alarm for one in the afternoon. The fact Sam was already up told him that his brother hadn't slept much either.

_Fuck._ It'd been a bad week.

It started with that damn Djinn scrambling his head. And then Sam had to go and find a missing persons site dedicated to that Ava girl, read some messages posted by her grieving friends. His mood was now quiet and sullen, and no matter how hard Dean tried Sam wouldn't talk about it, or the fact that he'd been having nightmares again.

Dean snorted. _Yeah, like I'm one to talk._

The bathroom door opened and Sam walked out, a cloud of fog in his wake. Dean got his ass up. He'd already washed up and shaved, pulled on his jeans and shirt, when he noticed the half empty bottle of pills in his brother's bag, left open in the bathroom counter.

He pulled the bottle out. _Excedrin._ The Djinn had slammed Sam's head hard against those stairs, leaving him with nasty headaches for a couple of days. _Damnit_. Sam had promised him the headaches had stopped.

He should've known that Sam was lying.

Dean tossed the bottle back in the bag, stuck his head out. "Sam? You still having headaches?"

Sam turned with a small shrug, and Dean noticed again how tired he looked. He guessed he looked just as bad. _Fuck_. He should've vetoed this whole hunt. It was a get-back-on-the-horse kind of deal, both for him to shake off the frigging Djinn's mind-screw and to appease Sam's latest need to up the people-we-saved body count. A haunted ship, marooned near the coast and associated with too many dead bodies, seemed like just the thing for them, even if neither were good enough for shit right now.

"Sam-"

"It's just a slight headache, Dean," Sam murmured back with another half-shrug. "Besides, you said it yourself, chances are slim we'll find anything."

That much was true. Back in the seventies a ship by the name of the Sweet Marie had been grounded on the beach just north of Thorton, South Carolina. In the past thirty years there had been at least nine deaths. All people exploring the ship, all people who had supposedly been onboard at sunrise.

At least that was the local legend. Dean and Sam had not been unable to find much to back up the stories. Coroner's reports had only been done on three of the victims, the rest had been ruled "accidental drownings."

"We can wait. One more day isn't gonna-"

"I'm _fine,_ Dean." Sam huffed, straightening from his foray in the fridge and last night's leftovers. He thrust his jaw out. "We're up, it'll be dark in a couple of hours, so we might as well check it out."

Dean knew that look in his brother's eyes, knew this would turn into a big-ass fight if he said 'No'.

"Fine," Dean retorted nonchalantly. Reaching over he grabbed his jacket -he needed coffee, gallons of it- and wagged a finger at his brother, saying pointedly, "but if this is a bust, then we're going to Atlanta."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You know there _are_ more reliable ways to make money."

"Fun, Sammy," Dean stifled a yawn and grabbed his keys. "Making money should be all about fun."

Dean pulled the Impala to the side of the road, glanced over at his brother, who was leafing through his notes. The drive to the ship had been short, but they had ended up having to wait for the rather large group of tourists to clear the area before they could do any looking around of their own. Fortunately, the flash-camera shooters had cleared the area long before there was any danger to them.

Dean killed the headlights, snapped the inside light off. The night was dark, the waning moon barely a sliver.

"Dean?"

He sucked down the last of his coffee. "Yeah?"

"I..." Dean couldn't see it, but he'd bet money that Sam was chewing on his bottom lip. "I'm wondering if maybe we're not looking at this from the wrong angle."

Dean raised one eyebrow, "Dude, how many angles are you seeing here?"

"I'm thinking this might be some sort of water sprite," Sam said, bypassing the sarcasm.

_Great._ Geek boy was going for the one thing it _couldn't_ be. Dean could think of several creatures that might make the old boat into a home, but definitely not sprites. They were like fey, iron and steel was bad news for them. And the Sweet Marie was an old ferry, made out of both.

"Sam, you do know the whole boat is metal, right?"

"I know, but the stuff surrounding the boat isn't," Sam pointed out. "The local college did a project on it. There's all sorts of diaries and logs. There are no signs whatsoever of the crew ever thinking the ship was haunted, and most of them died of old age, Dean, not violent deaths. Besides, all the victims drowned, which pretty much spells water, not haunted ship."

"Yeah, well lots of _things_ drown people."

Like stupidity. Sure, nine people had drowned in thirty years, but all of them were exploring a ship that was slowly breaking apart.

Dean got out, took off his jacket and his shirt, leaving just his t-shirt. If something did grab him, he didn't want to be tangled up in water-logged clothes. Sam did the same, shifting from foot to foot impatiently while Dean checked and double-checked his weapons because he could only take what he could carry.

Night was sliding into the dark gray of pre-dawn, soft light gliding across the quiet water's surface. The coast was thick with pine trees, the ground slick and soft with their needles. Dean took a deep breath as they hiked down to the beach, the salted ocean air and pine filling his lungs in a refreshing way that warded some of the tiredness from his bones.

The Sweet Marie had once been a ferry, before a developer had bought her. Used her to haul construction material to the new hotel he was building on Travis Island. When the construction was finished, the boat had simply been abandoned by the shoreline.

It seemed a little odd to Dean to simply walk up to a ship. The ferry was listing badly, her stern sunk deep into the mud and sand, her bow thrusting up into the gray sky. There was a metal ladder up her side, and Dean tested it, found it still secure.

It was hard to get his footing once he was on board. The sharp angle of the deck, the way the boat was breaking apart, made it dangerous. He took out a flashlight, bringing up the ship's plans in his head.

They were on the car deck. Above them was another deck, with a dining room, seating room for the passengers and the bridge. Above that was the observation deck. Below their feet were the engines and the holds.

With dawn creeping up on them, and despite the churning the idea caused in his stomach, Dean agreed that they would cover ground more quickly if they split up. Dean made his way to the top, started working down to the main passenger deck, while Sam would start by the engine room.

Their EMF readers registering nothing. Even Dean had to admit it was a little creepy, inching along the slanted deck, past rows of long deserted chairs and tables, everything dimly lit by the first streaks of dawn.

Below him, he heard the loud booming shot that could only belong to Sam's Desert Eagle. Dean took the rotting stairs as fast as he could, the Colt in his hand before he reached the car deck. Sam was in the deck below, toward the stern, holding his gun out, staring down into the depths of ship.

"Sam? What is it?"

"I dunno, I saw something. It went down those stairs."

Dean adjusted his grip on the gun, "Well, wha'd it look like?" His eyes went from his brother then to the surrounding area. Searching. Wary.

"I dunno," Sam shook his head. "It was too fast."

"Oh, well that's a freakin' lot of help." Dean started down the stairs cautiously. He thought it would be dark, but there were some places where the seams of the old ship were pulling away, letting the pinkish light of dawn spill in. The stairs shifted and creaked, but seemed solid enough.

Dean waved Sam to cover him. They went down carefully, stopped at a landing, nothing more than a square of metal grating. Below them lay water, black and oily. That sixth sense that every hunter developed slammed into Dean. He waved his gun, a slight motion, signaling Sam to back up.

Which meant, obviously, that the idiot took another step toward the edge.

_Damnit._ They needed to get away from the water. _Immediately._ Dean lowered his gun, went to grab for Sam-

Something big and gray jumped out of the water, moving fast, hitting Dean hard. He hit the grating, rolled, raised his gun automatically. Trying to get a clean shot, even as he heard his brother's grunt of pain, heard the heavy thud as his brother slammed into the stair railing and then fell backwards.

Part of Dean was pure instinct, emptying his entire clip at the thing, while his tired brain was trying to grasp the fact he was shooting at something that looked like a fucking _dolphin_-

And then it clicked. Dolphin. Water sprite. _Encantado._ A water element that shifted into a dolphin. Had to be, and _Oh fuck! _he was using his Colt 1911, laded only with your basic consecrated iron with compressed powder, which was more or less useless shit against an Encantado.

The thing was gone, leaving only ripples in the oily surface.

Dean started to shift the Colt to his left hand and grunted as pain lanced up his arm. Glancing down he saw a long cut along his upper arm and realized he'd sliced it on the grating, but before he could think more about it something started dripping down into one eye. Annoyed, he shot a hand out and swiped at it, only to bring it back red. Blood.

"Dammit," Dean huffed, watching the spot where Sam had disappeared. After a quick pass of his sleeve over the excess blood on his head, he grabbed the Beretta from his hip clip, the .92 loaded with sabot-wrapped silver bullets, and continued. It was dark and he couldn't hear Sam moving yet; that registered as BAD on his Sam-worry-o-meter, but he pushed the concern down. This thing was pissed at them and until he took care of the frigging _dolphin_ he couldn't take care of Sam.

Not daring to take his eyes from where the monster had disappeared underwater, Dean slid his Colt to the floor and pulled out a lighter and clicked it to life.

The flame danced a moment before he tossed it in.

The oil covered surface exploded and oh fuck, the thing was fast -Dean had no freakin' idea where the hell a killing shot was for a fuckin' fish. He aimed at the damn thing's eye, let his breath out. Squeezed the trigger slow and easy. The gun erupted, the Encantado screamed, and then there was nothing but lumps of black ectoplasm falling back into the water with heavy plops.

Dean gagged at the smell, then, ignoring the pain ricocheting from his throat to his head, he ran to the last place he'd seen his brother. "Sam? Sammy?"

Slumped against the stairs, the younger Winchester lay still, unmoving. Dean didn't remember his feet touching the ground, but he was at his brother's side in seconds, pulling Sam against his body so that his brother's bleeding head could rest on his shoulder. The older hunter did a quick check of the damage done by the damn dol-fuck-phin.

Two long gashes ran across Sam's back, running from left shoulder and in a curving arc across against his back, ragged and bloody, even if they didn't look deep. Dean looked up, easily locating the two guilty bolts, sticking out of the railing, their tips rusted and blood smeared. Sam had obviously hit them just right. Dean was a lot more worried about the blood flowing freely from above Sam's ear, already starting to mat his hair. Sam was already recovering from one concussion. Another head blow was bad news and Dean knew it.

"Sam?" Dean hurriedly dashed the blood from his own eye away. "Sammy? Come on man, wake up."

His brother grunted, started to push himself up and stopped, swallowing convulsively.

Worry quickly went to a full-blown panic. "Come on, man, sit up."

"Can't , gonna be-"

"Yeah, but you gotta."

Sam's mind did try one more time, but his body had other ideas. The heaving exploded from his brother's mouth and there was nothing Dean could do other than grab his shoulder to steady him, careful not to touch his back. Always sucked, throwing up after getting hit in the head, but Dean knew it was better to just get that part over with. "Sammy? Look at me. "

"Dean? Did I-" Sam finally raised his head, his eyes glazed, his expression baffled. "Did I get attacked by a dolphin?"

"Yeah," Dean confirmed absent-mindedly, busy checking his brother's eyes. They were glazed with pain, but at least the pupils looked normal. "You totally let Flipper get the drop on you," he said, squeezing Sam's shoulder reassuringly. "You were right, though. Well, sort of... Flipper was an Encantado."

"But those are um, South-" Sam looked confused. "South African."

_Shit on a stick!_ Encantados were typically South American -Sam had been the one explaining that to him- and Sam never got his facts wrong. Dean put a hand under his brother's elbow. "Uh, can you stand?"

Sam lurched to his feet, his weight immediately giving up on gravity when he put some pressure on his right leg. Gasping and leaning heavily on Dean, Sam looked in confusion to his betraying limb. His expression was baffled, his eyes dazed and unfocused. "Hum, Dean...what exactly was I doing lying down?"

Oh yeah, hospital. _Now._

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In Sam's dream, there was a pair of dancing sandals, doing twirls in the air.

Those were the ugliest pair of sandals Sam had ever seen. So ugly, in fact, they made his back ache with an unrelenting pounding that matched the sound of his pulse pounding along in his ears in time with the hammering headache.

Really ugly sandals.

Sam made a mental note to not mention to his brother he'd noticed how ugly the sandals inside his head were. It would be too weird on too many different levels. Not to mention girly.

It didn't explain why Sam had his very own percussion band thing going on…pretty much head to foot.

An experimental wiggle of the toes on his right leg caused pain to shoot up, bounce off his hip and rocket back down to his foot. No more toe wiggling.

"Sammy, you finally done goofing off?"

_Sammy… Sam… _That was him! The voice was Dean's; he'd know it anywhere. Even if he didn't know his own voice, he'd know Dean's. Even Dean's voice sounding too calm and gentle.

A hand -Dean's hand, he'd know that anywhere too came to rest on his shoulder, giving him an encouraging rub. Someone grunted. Sam had an idea it might have been him, but he wasn't sure. It wasn't a Dean grunt, however. He'd heard enough of those to know one anywhere.

"Yeah, it's me. Take it easy, go slow." The voice -Dean's voice- above him and close was reassuring.

Opening his eyes seemed like a good idea. For about a second.

The pain in his skull ratcheted up about a hundred times and his eyes felt like someone rammed something hot and sharp into them, causing even his eyelids to hurt. That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was what that did to his stomach, which had apparently moved and was now attached to his gouged-out eyes and tortured eyelids.

Everything Sam had eaten since the third grade, good, bad or just plain edible felt the need to come out and come out RIGHT-THE-HELL-NOW.

Maybe if he just closed his eyes and ignored it.

His stomach clenched and contracted, protesting the extensive use of eyelids.

"Whoa, whoa, no...hang on...it's... _Shit..."_

There was a flurry of movement next to him that immediately registered as _Dean-worked-up-over-something._ Sam had the fleeting thought that maybe Dean's distress was that he'd noticed the ugly sandals too. Dean's fingers dug into his shoulders and rolled him onto his side. His other hand landed on Sam's head and turned it a tiny bit. His entire body compressed, and he gagged trying to get air.

"Sam, let it out. I know you don't like to vomit, but seriously, dude, who does?"

The distinctive sound of liquid hitting something plastic pinged around in Sam's ears for a few seconds before he realized the liquid was from him and he could breathe clearly again. Some days, it was simply better to just do what Dean said to do.

His back got another light rub, which made him feel better. He tried to say thank you, which sounded more like, "Nngghuh." That made Dean chuckle. Sam was glad that, even dying, he could still amuse his brother.

"Nurse said you don't get much in the way of drugs until you're awake enough to see if your brain damage is the usual or if you added some more this time around."

Sam settled for the eyelid-lifting thing again, because yeah, he was that stupid.

This time not only did his head commence to pounding in double time, it added in some spinning just because it could. The world turned into a sickening swirl of white bed sheets, silver rail, brother in a dark tee and sweatpants, beige floors, beige ceiling and what might have been blue stripes on the walls. It all melded together, twisted around itself and _spun._ Fast.

Panic lurched through his chest, he was falling or being yanked up, Sam couldn't tell which way he was going, or maybe it was sideways. Arms flailing…his shoulder screeched at him for that movement…he managed to garble out, "Dean!"

Hands on both his shoulders, gripping hard, "Sam," made the world slow to a more reasonable speed. "Lay back, just relax."

Definitely some days it was very much worth it to listen to Dean and not worry about ugly sandals.

The next time he tried the prying up of his eyelids thingy, it went far better than before. There was a vague memory of Dean and some woman peppering him with odd questions, ones Dean shouldn't have had to ask because he should have known the answers. Probably just his brother trying to show off for the woman behind the female voice asking those silly questions.

At least she was not wearing ugly sandals. In fact, Sam remembered pale pink shoes with holes along the top. She'd told him they were called _Crocs,_ which was an odd name to give shoes. He was delighted hers stayed firmly on the ground and didn't hover three feet off it, tap dancing on his head. Or maybe that part hadn't actually happened?

"Hey... how ya' doing, buddy?" Dean stood and stretched.

Sam's eyes skimmed to the bandage neatly wrapped around Dean's forearm. "Did you need to go to a hospital? I should take you..."

"Yeah, I needed to go to a hospital, got some stitches." He bent his arm to look at it, then shifted his gaze back to Sam. "How are you feeling, Sammy?"

"M'kay... tired," Sam said, his eyed blinking heavily. "You okay?"

"Just great."

Dean settled in the chair so he was more level with Sam's line of vision. When his fingers skimmed through Sam's hair, brushing it down against his skull, it made his head hurt less, drowsiness taking over.

Managing the eye-opening trick was getting easier each time Sam tried. Next time he did it, the room was completely dark, except for the far off twinkle of some traffic lights outside. Being very careful, Sam turned his head one side to the other, taking in the room.

Generic poster on the far wall, about something or another and old people smiling in it, console of machines instead of bedside table, heart monitor instead of TV set.

It was a hospital room.

He was in a hospital bed. Wondering which one of them was hurt badly enough to risk a hospital, Sam eased himself up on his elbows. Glancing down at his chest, Sam took in the fact he was the one wearing the hospital gown. Great... That would also explain why his body felt like one massive bruise, even if the details on how that had happen where a bit foggy. He remembered something about... Flipper? No, that couldn't be right...

Movement to his right caught his attention and Sam gingerly turned his head, making his neck protest loudly at even that little bit of abuse.

Dean snuffled in his sleep, twisted and flopped onto his stomach. There was a nasty gash over his one visible eye and his arm was bandaged up. His brother, however, wasn't wearing a hospital gown. He was laying over the bed covers, like he'd just dropped there, and Sam could see the sweatpants and a T-shirt Dean was wearing. Lucky him, who could walk around without his ass hanging out for all to see.

Sharp jabs from the vicinity of his bladder made Sam try to sit up. The bed and the floor at once took a dip in four different directions.

"Dean," he croaked out. Hand patting the bed for something to fling at his sleeping sibling, because Sam needed help and the situation was reaching critical mass, Sam almost howled in despair when he couldn't find even a pillow to use as a missile. Clearing his throat he tried again. "Dean!"

This time his voice came out louder, still missing its usual power, but loud enough Dean stirred and sat up, blinking at Sam with a blurry expression. He frowned as Sam shifted on his hips across the bed. "Pee."

Realization spread over Dean's face. He swung out of bed, grabbed Sam's arm and hoisted him off the bed, making short work of getting him to the bathroom and then getting him back to the bed.

Looking at the efficient and practiced way in which Dean was reconnecting the plastic tube on to his hand, Sam sighed in frustration and leaned back, exhausted by the small trip. "I'm in the hospital...why?"

Dean rubbed the back of his neck before sitting on the edge of his own bed. "Well, technically I guess we both are. Except I got my marching papers about three hours after we got here. I think they let me hang around because they seemed short staffed and sorta happy I was willing to watch you."

"What happened... Exactly?" Sam asked, fighting the drowsiness that was once more taking over him.

"What do you remember?" Dean asked, propping himself on the elbow of his not-injured arm. Sam was asleep before he could even make fun of him for having his ass kicked by a dolphin.

When next morning came, there were two trays of food delivered to the room, something that struck Sam as odd, giving that he was the only official patient in there. Dean got eggs and bacon, coffee, juice and a blueberry muffin.

Sam got... green Jell-O. Really, was it necessary to give a guy with a stomach insisting on regular clean outs igreen/i Jell-O? He shoved the little wobbly squares around in the bowl and eyed Dean's muffin. "Why do you get to have food?" he asked, hoping it hadn't come out as whinny as it'd sounded in his head.

"Made friends with the catering lady. Want me to go scare you up some toast?"

Sam gave another poke to the shimmering green thing in front of him, nodding his head just enough to feel his brain ihurt/i inside. Nodding was going to have to be cut out of his communication methods for a while.

Dean left, wandering back in a few minutes later. "Here you go," he said, making a big production of the plate he was carrying in one hand. "So... How much do you remember?"

Sam munched on his toast and thought hard. "Dirty water and flipflops... Flipper."

Arching an eyebrow, Dean snorted. "Figures."

Oh, yeah, he wasn't supposed to mention that. Dean didn't seemed to take much notice as he proceeded to tell Sam of their encounter with the bad tempered encantado.

"How's the toast sitting?"

Sam shrugged and decided he was done that for a while too. "Okay...so when can I get out of here?"

"As soon as you can go to the li'l boys' room without turning green," Dean said automatically, waving to some nurse that had momentarily popped her head in to Sam's room. His gaze stayed on the door long fter she was gone.

"What?" Sam asked, noticing his brother's interest.

"Hum... Nothing," Dean mumbled, wolfing down the rest of his muffin.

"Dean... What?"

Dean scratched his head, pausing short of touching the fresh stitches. "That nurse... She gave me the tingleys."

Letting the rest of his toast drop to the plate, Sam sighed. "Thanks, my stomach was starting to feel better. I don't need an image of you and your tingles."

"Not _that_ kind. The euww, there's-something-odd-and-creepy-about-her kind. The _our-kind_ kind."

Great. Couldn't Sam be left alone to suffer through his vomiting and aching in peace? Apparently not.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It started when she first touched him.

No... it actually started earlier that day, right around the time when she woke up with bells ringing in her ears. One hand flailed, punched the alarm clock repetitively and still the damn ringing remained. And while that insistent inner noise could be annoying for any other person, she knew better than that.

Morgan was different. Or at least, she was now.

Two years ago, if she saw an owl outside the window at noon, she would pay little attention to it. Now, when she looked at one, she knew, iknew/i who was going to die and how. It only got worse when she actually touched people, because then, not only did she know, she could ifeel it/i as well. And the fact that Morgan Tracy worked as a nurse... sooo didn't help matters.

Morgan arrived at work that day at eight in the morning, bloodshot eyes and hair barely contained in a messy bun, ready to face her twelve-hour shift. Maybe now's a good time to point out that the ringing thing happened at four in the frigging morning and that her heart was racing faster than a horse on crack after that? Know the feeling? No? Well... it sucks, because that meant no more sleep and an alarm clock that still goes off at 6 am.

It also meant that, by the time she saw the "intruder" in room 404, Morgan was ready to blow someone's brains out. His looked about as good as any and the fact that he was actually a patient there and not an outsider barely saved him from bloodshed. Still, he wasn't supposed to be up.

Judging by the somewhat slept-in sheets on the unoccupied bed and by the looks of the guy's tired and bruised face, he hadn't used it that much. Instead, he had planted himself in the cheap plastic chair next to the other bed, the one actually occupied by yet another beat-up guy, one behaving like a proper patient. Unconscious and all.

"You're not in your bed," Morgan pointed out dryly.

"You are not Julia Roberts," he replied sarcastically, giving her little more than a sideways glance. "Your turn to state the obvious."

Morgan raised one eyebrow at him, a quick reminder that she had access to very large needles and that she was not afraid to use them, before quietly picking up the chart at the end of unconscious-guy's bed.

She skimmed through the details, refreshing her memory from what she'd already been told by the night-shift nurse. Grade three concussion on top of a non-defined previous one less than a week ago (geez, how clumsy was this guy?), two long laceration wounds on his back, twenty stitches each (ouch!), and a hairline fracture on the right, medium femur. Last neuro-exam had been a little over two hours ago, so, for now, unconsc -she looked at the chart again- Sam Bouvier, could sleep a bit more before having his next round of redundant questions.

"He's in pain," sarcasm-boy pointed out. The sarcasm was gone, though. In its place there was now something like a veiled request for help.

Yes, she'd imagine he would be in pain. But the acid answer that was already on the tip of her tongue died away when Morgan looked at the guy. He looked more miserable than Sam. "He's already on an IV mild painkiller," she explained instead. "Until his CT scan results are back and we can find out how his brain reacted to this latest bump, we can't really risk giving him anything stronger than that."

He just nodded, a quiet acceptance that told her that this wasn't his first rodeo. The nodding didn't seemed to agree with -Morgan picked up his file instead- ah! would you look at that... Mr. I Have a Grade Two Concussion. Eyes scrunched shut, one hand pressed to the gash on his forehead, listing in his chair, he was clearly dizzy. He looked about a hundred pounds more than what she was willing to pick up from the floor, specially with the kind of crappy day she'd been having so far, so the best course of action was to not let him fall down at all.

Determined, Morgan stepped closer and put her hands on her hips. "You... bed... now," she voiced in no uncertain terms.

"Not the first time I heard that one, you know?" he whispered. The charming smirk that accompanied those words might've worked had it not been for the pale color of his face or the sweat gathering on his upper lip.

Still, he complied. Moving to his side, Morgan unrolled the BP cuff and attached it to his arm. The minute the tip of her fingers touched his skin, she felt her knees go weak. And no, it had nothing to do with how green his eyes looked, or how sinful his lips were or even with how fit his body seemed.

Instead, it had all to do with Morgan being different and the ringing in her ears that had kept her from sleeping that night.

The whurrrrl sound of the BP machine faded away and the lights dimmed around the woman. It was suddenly cold and she could feel mud under her knees and such a deep, deep sadness...

"...'m... Hey! Ma'am... You feeling ok?"

The ghost feelings faded away and suddenly she was back at the hospital room, looking at the face of one very concerned patient. How was _that_ for irony?

"I'm okay... Sorry about that," the nurse quickly said, turning her head away from his questioning gaze and looking at his BP values instead. No idea what the machine was telling her because her eyes couldn't quite yet focus that much this soon, but it was an awesome escape plan. "Doctor Simms said you should be getting your discharge papers soon, so I suggest you take that time to rest," she gruffly ordered, trying to hide the lingering tremor in her voice.

She didn't even give him time to reply. Just turned around and focused her attention on the unconscious guy. You know, the one with his eyes close and that would not be asking any pesky questions about her latest weird-out. She could still feel the other guy's eyes drilling holes into her back. She must've freaked him out.

This... this was nothing. It was much worse in the beginning. Like, dropping stone cold on the floor worse. Like her eyes turning completely white and her body shaking from tip of hair to tip of toe worse. Now she could manage to stay on her feet, but this ivision/i thingy or whatever the hell these things were, still sucked monkey-balls each and every time they hit her.

Distracting herself with Sam's readings, playing the professional card to avoid thinking about what had just happened, Morgan tried to forget how it felt, what she'd iseen,/i what she had learned about the obnoxious guy in the next bed. And she would have been able to pull it off too, if she hadn't touched Sam's eyelid to take a look at his eyes.

The feeling was much more stronger this time around, like an electrical discharge and God! It had _never_ been that strong before.

There were bright lights popping on and snuffing out. A feeling of sharp pain in her back, white and hot. A warm body enveloping her and protecting her from such a deep cold that words could not describe it and then...nothing. Just black and despair and the complete sense of failure.

Morgan forced her hand to pull away, the movement brusque enough to send one of the IV bags, hanging from the support above, into a mad spin around and around...

She had to get away from that room...away from those two guys. Because now she knew who was going to die and what the consequences would be and if she didn't walk away right that frigging moment, she was going to either start crying or tell them everything. Either way, they would think she was nuts.

The other guy -she really should've looked at the name in his chart- got discharged, as predicted, a couple of hours after. Not that that changed anything.

When Morgan returned to their room, wondering how the hell she was going to do her job without touching Sam and getting another taste of his nasty future, the other guy was still sitting on the plastic chair. Sarcasm-boy.

"You're still here," she mentioned.

"You're still stating the obvious," he replied without missing a beat. And from the way he sounded, yes, it did sound obvious to him that his presence by Sam's bed was not only expected, but was a non-disputable law of physics.

Turned out his presence actually came in handy. Sam's eyes were open when she neared him, but he wasn't really here, nor was he really seeing any of them.

Which meant he just ignored Morgan when she tried to ask him his name and age.

"Let me," the other guy said, not quite pushing her aside but more like moving her aside just by making use of the sheer amount of space he took. He grabbed the guy's hand and shook his shoulder gently. "Hey... Tell the lady here your name?"

His thumb was rubbing circles absentmindedly inside Sam's pulse and the hand resting on his shoulder was opened and flat against the thin gown, grounding them both it seemed. There was definitely some amount of love, old love -the kind that involved nursery rooms and endless pranks- and trust between the two and the things Morgan saw when she touched either of them only hurt more sharply now as she realized that.

The death of one will kill the other, she was sure of that now.

"N'ms 'amm," Sam finally answered.

She looked at her "helper," hoping for a translation, certain that he had one for her.

"Name's Sam," he complied.

"Good... Age?"

Some forehead frowning, a lick of lips and the same mumbled reply. "'wnty 'ree."

"Twenty-"

"Three, yeah, I got it... Thanks." She made a small notation on his chart. Still too soon for any real alertness on his part, so name and age would have to do for now.

"'u haff nice shoos."

Morgan looked down at her feet, and sure enough, Sam's crossed and unfocused eyes were looking at them. Which also meant that he forced his sideways position and moved his head down, which made what happened next completely predictable. "Thanks... They're not actually shoes, they're called Crocs-"

And she didn't really have time enough to explain anything more as he puked all over them.

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It was later that night before Dean could get the supplies he needed from the Impala. By then, of course, the nurse with the formerly-clean Crocs was off duty, but he still swept the room with the EMF. The device remained silent, which was a good thing. Probably. It wasn't like it lit up around Sam, and if the nurse was what he thought she was, there wouldn't be any visible signs.

But he'd seen the way she'd spaced out when she touched his skin, which all by itself wasn't much, Dean had to agree.

But then there was her hand.

He'd seen Sam's hand twist and spasm just like that every time he had one of his death-visions things. It wasn't much, but it was enough to raise the hunter's suspicions.

If the nurse -Morgan, according to her name tag- was one of the "special kids", like Dean suspected, then salt wouldn't bother her. Neither would holy water or iron. Still, Dean had them all sitting in the bag beside him for when she came back in the morning, although he had yet to figure out how to unobtrusively test all of them on her.

He tipped the chair back against the wall, keeping one eye on Sam's sleeping form. The poor kid was really out of it, although thankfully he'd kept all of his meager dinner inside his gut. Somehow it figured that they couldn't catch a break, not even in the hospital.

There was definitely something weird about that nurse. Yellow eyes sort of weird.

Sam was too out of it to confirm it, either by normal or psychic means, but Dean knew. The way she'd zoned out after taking his blood pressure and then ireally/i freaked out after getting near Sam…that wasn't normal. And it had happened right after she touched their skin, which meant some kind of _power_ that depended on skin-to-skin contact.

Which was just perfect, considering Sam was vulnerable as hell in that sleeveless, backless, paper-thin excuse for clothing he had on. Dean had managed to keep her away the second time around, although come to think of it, she hadn't tried anything. Maybe she'd already gotten what she wanted. The thought sent a quick chill down his spine.

At any rate, he wasn't letting her near his brother again.

After a quick check of the clock, he saw there were about eight hours until the morning shift started. Squinting at the keypad of his phone, fuzzy to his eyes with the lingering effects of his concussion, Dean set the alarm for six hours from now and laid down on the spare bed, knife under the pillow just like at "home."

But somehow, when he woke up, it was too late. She was already there, legs braced firmly against the floor, hand touching Sam's arm, and her eyes were open but blank. Stifling a curse, Dean leapt to his feet, pulling out the knife and taking three quick strides forward.

She must have heard him coming, because she jerked back and lifted her hands in the air, pale blue eyes going wide at the sight of the knife. "Please," she said. "I don't mean either of you any harm. I'm not hurting him."

"Then what the hell iare you doing?"/i Dean asked, advancing as she retreated, until her back was to the wall. He lifted one hand to pin her there while the other raised the knife and held it a few inches from her throat. He didn't dare look away to check on Sam, but at least he could hear his brother breathing, deep and steady.

Morgan licked her lips, eyes darting between his face and the knife. "This is going to be hard for you to believe."

"You'd be surprised," Dean growled.

She hesitated, and he moved the knife closer. "I see things," she blurted out. "I have...visions, I guess."

"Visions of what?" he asked sharply. This sounded too much like Sam's abilities to be a coincidence.

"Of the future... I think. I mean, I'm not sure if they all come true. I was always too scared to find out."

"You don't try to stop them from happening?" he asked accusingly. Sure, not everyone could pack up and move around the country like he and Sam did, but even the scared secretary from Peoria had driven a couple of hundred miles to keep her vision of Sam's death from coming to pass.

"I don't know how," she replied. "I-it only happens with people I don't know, and in a town this small, that's only people who are passing through. I've never seen any of them again to find out... And how the hell do you tell a perfect stranger that a car is gonna hit him in the next five minutes to twenty years?"

Dean scratched his head. She had a point. "What do you mean, it's only with people you don't know?" he asked.

"Zenom'ssy," came from Sam's bed.

At least that's what Dean thought he heard. He turned his head to look at Sam, who was blearily staring up at them, blinking as he took at Dean's threatening position. "D'n. Put th' knife down," he mumbled.

"Not 'til I know what's going on," Dean insisted, eyes back on the "threat."

Sam tilted his head back on the pillow, looking up at Morgan. "When'd't start?"

Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment, and then she said, "When did it start? That's all you want to know?" She sounded genuinely surprised. When neither of them gave her much of an answer, she sighed, "a little over a year ago."

Dean looked down at Sam, who was giving him as knowing a look as he could in his out-of-it state. He let out a huge sigh and stepped back, lowering the knife a little but not entirely. "So she is one of you."

"One of... " Morgan's questioning glance bounced off from one to the other, "...what?"

Something flickered across Sam's face as he clenched his teeth, jaw line working silently. "Sounds like xenomancy," he finally said, more clearly than before.

Dean cocked his head to the side. The word sounded familiar. "Divination based on…" he started, working it out by parts. It sounded kind of like _xenophobia_. "...on strangers?"

"There's a name for it?" Morgan sounded shocked.

"Well, yeah. You didn't think you were a completely special snowflake, did you?" Dean shot back, the sarcasm back. Morgan shot him a pointed look.

"Dean," Sam said warningly.

"What did you see?" Dean asked, taking a threatening step towards her but keeping the knife at his side. "Was it so good you wanted to see it again?"

To his surprise, her face turned pale. "No. Not at all."

"Then what?" Dean demanded, his voice raising slightly.

"Is there a problem in here?"

Dean whirled to see a man in a long white coat standing in the doorway, looking suspiciously at him and then at Morgan. "Nurse Tracy, is everything all right?"

"Yes, everything's fine," she said, taking a step forward and forcing Dean to move back or risk looking like he was keeping her prisoner or something. "I was just about to take the patient's vitals."

The doctor looked between her and Dean once more and then moved into the room. Dean surreptitiously slid the knife inside the holster in the small of his back and stood against the wall, trying to look harmless.

Damn, he really needed to talk to this woman again. He'd gotten a good look at her eyes when he asked her what she'd seen from Sam. And she'd looked far more scared then than when he'd had a knife at her throat. Like it had been the most horrifying thing she'd ever seen.

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Dean waited for another moment of quiet with the weirdo nurse, but quiet was hard to come by in a hospital. Every time he turned around, something else was going on, footsteps pounding down the corridor, someone paging a doctor to the OR, a flurry of activity in a room down the hall. At least Sam was quiet, mostly sleeping the sleep of the very groggy and somewhat incoherent.

In the end she found them, slipping back into the room at what Dean assumed was the end of her shift. The background hum of the hospital had settled into a dull roar. Nurse...Tracy, right? Her eyes were still wide, kind of shocked, even hours after the initial revelations. Dean was pretty used to people being shocked around him, though. He was just that good-looking. Oh, and the supernatural tended to freak people out, too.

"Sam," he shook Sam's shoulder, not taking his eyes off the nurse for a second. "Sam, wake up. We gotta figure this thing out now."

Nurse Tracy moved toward the bed in tiny, hesitant footsteps, holding the clipboard in front of her chest like a lame-ass shield. Her hands were clenched, close to her body. Obviously didn't want to touch Sam again if she could help it -she hadn't been in to check the kid's vitals again since the first time, as if she was foisting the job off on her colleagues.

Sam snorted awake and rolled his head on the pillow, blinking blearily at Dean, then at the nurse when his big brother pointed at her impatiently. "Over there, Sasquatch. Your brain online again? I-See-Dead-People Nurse has somethin' to tell us."

"It's Morgan." The nurse stopped still a few feet from the bed, out of touching distance. "You asked what...you still want to know what I saw?"

"Yeah." Dean gave a decisive nod.

"You..." Her face twisted up in an expression Dean couldn't quite read. "You really think it might help? To know? It's not... I mean, you can change it?"

Dean tilted his head, thinking about it. All of Sam's visions that they'd tried to stop so far... Well, it usually hadn't worked that great. Things pretty much happened anyway, no matter how hard they tried to stop it. His stomach twisted at the thought, but it was true. Knowing the future didn't make it any easier to change, it seemed. It just let you know ahead of time exactly how screwed you were.

Dreams and visions, man... They were nothing but trouble. Judging by the ashen look on this poor girl's face, they weren't exactly a joyride for her either.

"Yes," Sam said abruptly, firmly, as if he knew. "We can change it."

Then Dean remembered. Sam had seen him being shot. And he'd been able to stop it.

Okay, so sometimes. Sometimes they could change it.

Morgan looked at the floor, then took a deep breath, and her shoulders steadied. She looked up, met their eyes, mouth firm and defiant. She was a spitfire. Dean admired that.

"It wasn't...clear. Not really. I only saw bits and pieces. But...you were alone." Her eyes flicked back and forth between them, and Dean clenched his jaw.

Never gonna happen.

"You weren't together. Sam...you were far away, so far away, off the map. There were other people with you, bright, like flames. Then, a dark presence. The darkest thing I've ever felt, in the visions or in real life. Feeling it was like...it was like slipping around the edge of a whirlpool, feeling it suck at you, and you have to fight and fight to get away...and then..." She hesitated, her throat working furiously against the obvious lump there.

"Go on," Sam urged, his voice gentle and understanding.

Morgan took a deep breath, steadying under that sympathetic gaze. "...and then those bright flames started to... They started to go out. One by one."

She looked at Dean, meeting his eyes, though not without a little flinch in hers. "That's when you came. You ran as fast as you could, but it was already too late." Morgan lowered her gaze to the floor again. "Sam's flame went out, too."

Dean swallowed, hard, and the churning in his stomach went up a notch.

No.

Never gonna happen.

Sam just nodded, though, weary but believing. Resigned.

Dean cleared his throat, working up the spit to talk. "That was it?" The words were a little slow, brain still furiously processing. "You didn't get anything else? A date, a place, anything?"

"No...that was it." Morgan looked at the floor to hide the frustration on her face. They were burdens, these psychic things. Weird, heavy burdens. But yeah, sharing them could help. It was certainly better than being left wondering about should-haves and could-haves. She looked at them again, her gaze piercing. "You really think you'll be able to change it?"

Dean smirked. "Darlin', nothing in the world is gonna get my little brother. Especially when we know it's coming. Maybe you should try it more often. You know, the helping-people-out thing."

Her mouth pursed in irritation. "I'm a _nurse,"_ she said, already turning away, disgusted with herself for putting up with this. "That's what I do _all day long."_

"We know," Sam said soothingly. "Ignore Dean. He has sporadic attacks of severe jackass-itis."

Morgan shook her head and stepped toward the door, done with them.

"Hey, listen," Dean said, making an effort to inject some sincerity back in his voice. The jackassery was how he dealt with this shit -it was pure habit. But he needed her to listen for just a second. "Morgan...thanks. I know... I know it was hard, telling people about what's going on with you."

The nurse paused in the doorway, standing sideways to look back at him. Dean could see the relief lightening her face. "You're welcome."

"And, Morgan..."

She dipped her head, listening.

"If you ever see someone with yellow eyes... Run. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Just run, and don't look back."

Morgan Tracy nodded, then walked out.

Dean somehow knew that they would never see her again.

"Dean..." Sam was looking up at him, his eyes glittering with lingering confusion, pain, concern. His neck was tense, as if he was straining to get up. "What she said..."

"Don't worry about it." Dean shook his shoulder roughly, because that was what men did. But then he left his hand there, holding on. "Don't worry about it, you hear me, Sammy? Not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen."

Sam swallowed thickly, but his head sank back down into the pillow. "How can you be sure? The yellow-eyed demon..."

"I'm never gonna let us be separated, okay? She said it happened while we were separated. And that's not gonna happen. We stick together. No matter what, we stick together."

Sam nodded, eyes already drooping. "Okay."

"I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you, Sammy. Not ever. You hear me?"

"I hear you." The words were slurred, exhaustion taking over again. Sam's eyes slid shut, and he was relaxed, believing, trusting.

Dean let his hand drift off his little brother's shoulder and stood back, watching him sleep. Thought about bright lights, flames, going out one by one. He felt his shoulders shake and let it happen, let it run through him, a micro-quake barely registering on the scale. It ended soon enough, and he was steady.

Never gonna happen. Not ever. He would make sure of it.

The End

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